Threads of Life

Threads of Life is about the ancestral worldview of the indigenous peoples of the Indonesian archipelago. We support the continued practice of this wisdom by its custodians, and we share this wisdom with the world. We recognize that this worldview is embodied in and transmitted through the objects of material culture within these traditions, through the ways in which these objects are made, through the rituals associated with their use, and through the oral traditions associated with each of these. We seek to share this wisdom in like manner.

We work in two ways. First, we work directly with over a thousand women weavers on twelve islands across Indonesia, commissioning and reselling high-value heirloom-quality textiles and baskets made with local materials and natural dyes. The income we bring to the women we work with helps them maintain the dignity of their culture and identity, and make a living while doing so.

"Second, we work with smallholder farmers and harvester groups across the archipelago to buy responsibly sourced natural dyes to use in our artisanal natural dye studio in Bali. Embodying the values and skills we have learned from the women weavers we work with, we hand-make natural dyed cloth by natural processes for commercial clients.

"Threads of Life's collaboration with Saktut Raitawati brings together these two aspects of our work. We are dyeing hand-spun, handwoven scarves from weavers in Java to Saktut's designs, and we are dyeing commercial fabric that Saktut makes into beautiful garments."